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dragonbat2006) wrote2015-02-08 09:27 am
Fic: Under the Radar (Crossover: Batman/Daredevil)
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson, Matt Murdock, Foggy Nelson
Words: 2872
Summary: When Bruce Wayne finds himself in a bit of legal trouble in New York, he discovers that good attorneys are easy to find, but hard to keep in the dark—even when they're blind!
Genre: Action/Adventure, Crossover, Drama
Warnings: Talk of canonical character deaths.
Notes: Thanks to Kathy and Debbie for the beta!
Timeline: Daredevil near the end of Volume 1. Batman post-Knightsend, pre-No Man's Land.
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Bruce frowned. “If I recall correctly,” he said, “Wilson Fisk was a well-respected businessman in this city until,” he leaned forward slightly, “it was revealed that he was also the head of the New York underworld. Your doing, I believe?”
Matt inclined his head with a self-deprecating smile. “He has his own lawyers, of course. They were able to get most of the charges dismissed. The others are still making their way through the system. At the pace of an asthmatic snail.” He sighed. “I cost him his reputation, at least. No legitimate enterprise in this city will have anything to do with him at this point, unless he has some sort of hold over them.”
“I see...” Bruce said, still frowning. “I gather you’re telling me this by way of letting me know that Fisk is a factor in my problem.”
“I believe so,” Matt nodded. “I’ve been keeping an eye on Baron and Baron for some time. They used to handle a lot of business for Fisk. It all appeared to be legitimate, but part of the reason that Fisk was untouchable for so long was because his businesses formed an intrinsic part of this city’s economic makeup. Major corporations, small start-ups, franchises, mom-and-pop convenience stores... He had a stake in an estimated 40 per cent of all commercial enterprise in Manhattan alone. He might have had layers of shell companies and dummy corporations to hide behind, but at the end of the day, he was running the show.”
“Until you exposed him,” Bruce said flatly.
Matt sighed. “That hurt him. It didn’t stop him. And unfortunately, when he was out of the picture, the smaller crime bosses started jockeying for power and the violent crime rate increased significantly until he returned. He claims to be the victim of a smear campaign, and has given interviews in which he loudly proclaims his faith that the courts will exonerate him.”
“The courts that are moving at the rate of an asthmatic snail,” Bruce said, with a note of bitter levity.
“Yes. The fact is, as painful as it is for me to admit, the streets are actually safer when he’s free. He can keep his people in line. And I can keep him from crossing certain lines.”
“But you can’t stop him completely.”
For a moment, Matt appeared to be dejected. Then he lifted his head with a crooked half-smile. “Not yet.” He lifted the earpiece of his glasses and ran his finger behind his ear. “I’ve had more luck going after his lieutenants, though I’d feel better about it if I didn’t think that Fisk was tossing me a few crumbs to keep me off of his back. He owns a number of people in key positions: cops, judges, politicians... and, I suspect, more than one executive at Baron and Baron.”
Bruce settled himself a bit more comfortably in his chair. “I was beginning to wonder how you were going to tie this in with my current situation.”
Matt pushed his earpiece down again. “Not unsurprisingly, Baron and Baron—like many financial companies—publishes promotional literature that features testimonials from satisfied customers. Before Fisk’s underworld dealings were exposed, his accolades were prominently displayed in many of their brochures. As a result, when his other business came to light, Baron and Baron did what they could to distance themselves, claiming that they didn’t know who they’d been involved with. It’s possible that they didn’t. It’s also possible that they condemned him with one hand, while continuing to accept his money with the other.”
“I have someone who can run that sort of data for me,” Bruce said slowly. “With all due respect, Mr. Murdock, I’ve been hearing a lot of speculation from you and, while I agree it sounds plausible, I prefer facts.”
“No argument there. Okay. I’m going to make some telephone calls, check out Baron and Baron’s case against you and figure out where to go from there. Meanwhile, I was thinking that we could go back to the building tonight and see if we can’t find something when we aren’t getting in each other’s way.”
“There’ll be increased security,” Bruce hedged.
“Yes.”
“And the crime scene has likely been picked clean of anything useful.”
“Now you’re speculating.”
“True. There may be something useful on the computer.”
“Yes. Although that’s something I’ll leave to you, since I’d need adaptive software to get anything out of it.”
“I was wondering about that,” Bruce admitted.
“What? Whether the blindness is an act? It is and it isn’t. I can’t see, but my other senses are a lot sharper than normal. I downplay that part of it when I’m not in costume. My enhanced senses are why I think that I might still pick up something at Baron and Baron. Certain scents and tastes can linger in an enclosed space for quite some time.”
“You broke the window last night,” Bruce pointed out. “I’d hardly call the space enclosed.”
“True,” Matt admitted, “but there wasn’t much wind and, if security didn’t keep the office door open for long, there wouldn’t have been much of a cross-breeze. It’s still worth another look. Plus, if anyone is on their way to our position, I’ll hear them before you will. I could go on, but I think you can get the idea.”
“But since you can’t see, you won’t be able to get anything off of the computer.”
“Exactly.”
Bruce nodded. “Ten tonight, then. The rooftop of Baron and Baron.”
“Done.”
“Your lawyer’s hunch was right,” Oracle informed him a few hours later. “I’ve been looking at police reports on suspects collared by Daredevil and cross-referencing them against records for companies owned wholly or partially by Wilson Fisk.”
“And?” Bruce asked, already suspecting the answer.
“And... I’m noticing too many cases where the suspects have taken large amounts of cash, which they then use to purchase other instruments—wire transfers, money orders, that sort of thing. Then those instruments are used to purchase other instruments. After anywhere from five to ten separate transactions, the funds end up in the Caymans, and from there go through a number of shell companies, which ultimately invest the money with Baron and Baron.” There was a note of admiration in her voice. “It’s not so much that this is anything new—because it really isn’t. As far as money laundering techniques go, this one’s in the textbooks. But the sheer number of layers, the convoluted trails, the...” Her voice trailed off. “Actually,” she continued wryly, “it’s probably how you’d set it up if you ever decided to turn to a life of crime.”
Dick burst out laughing and Bruce glowered. He’d known that conferencing Dick in on the call was probably a bad idea, but he hadn’t quite been able to put his finger on the reason why—until now.
“Noted,” he said. “What did you find out about Murdock?”
There was a short pause. “He was born in Hell’s Kitchen—bad neighborhood, by the way, though it’s gotten better recently. Mother walked out on him when he was a baby; his father raised him on his own. You might have heard of Murdock Sr., if you followed boxing ten to twenty years ago—Jonathan ‘Battlin’ Jack’ Murdock?”
Bruce frowned. “Junior heavyweight,” he said slowly. “A solid fighter in his day, but kept fighting well past it. Wait,” he said, remembering something else. “Shortly before his death, his career was starting to take off again, until he was killed outside Madison Square Gardens, less than an hour after winning his first championship prizefight in years.”
“I’m impressed,” Barbara admitted.
“The Herald ran the story. I remember shaking my head at the irony,” he replied. Then, getting back to the business at hand, he asked, “What else did you find out?”
“Well, Matt was always a top student. He lost his vision at fifteen, when he ran into the street to save a pedestrian from being hit by a truck that was illegally transporting radioactive waste through downtown Manhattan. One of the canisters fell from the truck and whether the lid wasn’t fastened, or whether it somehow got dislodged by the fall, some of the chemicals splashed into his eyes. He’s been blind ever since. It didn’t stop him from finishing high school; he was class valedictorian, by the way. He attended Columbia on scholarship, graduating summa cum laude and valedictorian again.” Her voice softened. “It was less than six months after his father’s murder.”
Bruce absorbed that. “When did Daredevil make his first appearance?”
“That’s going to take a bit more digging,” Oracle admitted, “and what turns up might not be completely accurate. Or, to put it a different way, there’s a bit of a gap between the time that you started going out to stop crime and the time that the media started paying attention. If I had to go by news reports to find out when Batman started operating, I’d likely be off by a couple of months. Now, I can try to check for reports like ‘the suspect was left tied up on the doorstep of the police department,’ but I’m going to be running into the same problem you did last night. Specifically, that there are a lot of Capes operating in Manhattan. They don’t all wait around to talk to the police when they’ve caught the criminals. There’s also a team of mutants based somewhere upstate—they call themselves the X-Men. From what I can tell, they’re on our side, but I’m sure you’ve heard the same political pundits I have on the so-called ‘mutant menace’...”
“Alarmist bigotry,” Bruce muttered.
“Yes, well, I’m just saying, I could picture a situation where they come into New York for whatever reason, witness a crime in progress and stop it, but then realize that if they approach the police directly, they might be taken into custody themselves, so they opt to just deposit the crook in front of the precinct and leave.”
“I understand the reasoning,” Bruce said impatiently.
“Look, all I’m trying to tell you is that if there’s vigilante activity in Gotham, odds are it’s us. In Manhattan? If there’s no signature calling card, there are a lot of possible suspects.”
“Hey,” Dick broke in, “have you maybe thought of asking him? I mean, you are going to meet him later tonight, after all.”
“Dick,” Oracle remonstrated, “don’t spoil his fun!”
“This isn’t fun, Barbara,” Bruce countered, making ‘fun’ sound like a foreign word. “This is data collection.”
“That which we call a rose...” Dick murmured.
Bruce glared at him. On the other end of the line, Barbara giggled. Dick grinned.
Shaking his head, Bruce exhaled. “Let me know what else you find out.” He terminated the call.
“Mind if I tag along tonight?” Dick asked. “You might need a lookout.”
Bruce considered. “It’s not a bad idea,” he admitted. “All right.”
“Mr. Murdock?”
Matt smiled. To his radar sense, his secretary appeared as a silhouette standing in his doorway. “Yes, Josie?”
“I’m sorry to disturb you. You wanted me to let you know when those Braille records arrived?”
“Thank you,” he said, reaching out for them.
Instead of placing them in his hand, though, Josie laid them carefully on the desk. “Okay, Mr. Murdock,” she said. “They’re right at... um... six o’clock!” she finished triumphantly. “Um... or should that be noon? Is it your twelve or my twelve?”
Matt’s smile grew slightly forced. He rested his hand on the pile. “I’ve got them,” he said. “And Josie?”
“Yes?”
He picked up on the nervousness in her voice. She was a temp who had been with the office for just over two weeks and she was still walking on eggshells around him. He wished she’d relax. “It’s my twelve,” he said, “but when I’m reaching out for them, it’s okay to just hand them over.”
“Oh,” she said, crestfallen. “I see. Oh my gosh! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to say ‘see,’ honestly! I am so—”
“Josie,” he reminded himself that if he let his irritation seep into his tone, she was probably going to think that he really was offended by her use of visual terminology. In fact, he was just mildly annoyed by her assumption that using such terminology was insensitive. “It’s okay to use words like ‘look’ and ‘see’ around me. I use them too. Just... talk to me like you’d talk to anybody else and pretend I’m wearing these,” he touched his fingers to his eyeglass frames, “because I’m a movie star in disguise,” he grinned. “Okay?”
“O-okay,” Josie agreed, still not sounding convinced. “Uh... was there anything else?”
“Not right now, thanks. Just make sure you have those forms filled out and ready for Halliwell to sign by four.”
“Yes, sir.”
He couldn’t quite suppress his sigh of relief, once she was out of earshot. He would have been lying had he said that he couldn’t have predicted her behavior. There was almost always a period of awkwardness with a new employee as they both tried to get used to one another. His blindness only intensified it. Still, it would probably pass or, if it didn’t, she would leave and he’d find someone else and start the cycle again. He hoped it would pass. He didn’t really want to have to break in another new assistant so quickly.
With a mental shrug, he reached for the top sheet of paper and began to read.
It took him less than twenty minutes to go through the stack. When he was done, he sat lost in thought, one hand still resting on the pages. He and Bruce had a bit more in common than he’d realized. They’d both lost parents to violence and likely decided to turn to vigilante justice for more or less the same reason.
He considered the second set of documents he’d ordered; the ones on Batman. The man was reputed to have mastered virtually every known style of unarmed combat. When would he have had the time...? Matt checked the “Bruce” papers again and nodded. While still in his teens, Bruce had seemingly vanished, only to resurface nearly a decade later. Matt could guess how he’d spent the intervening years.
He let out a long breath. When he’d been younger, he hadn’t had the time or the money to go abroad and study combat under the masters. Stick had sought him out for reasons Matt hadn’t learned until years later. He wondered how much more he might have learned, had he had that opportunity. Then he smiled and shook his head. He couldn’t change the past and, all things considered, he didn’t think he was doing too badly with the training he did have.
He fed the pages into the shredder one by one before returning to his desk to review his next client’s case.
That night, as Daredevil swung closer to the roof of Baron and Baron, he detected two heartbeats, both familiar. He smiled and picked up his pace. “Hope I didn’t keep you waiting,” he said. “Batman. Nightwing.”
“I’ve filled him in,” Batman said tersely. “Since you already recognized him in the hotel.”
“Yes.” He smiled apologetically. “It’s heartbeats and pheromones. They’re almost as distinctive as fingerprints, if you know what you’re looking for.”
“Ah,” Nightwing nodded. “In other words, I should pretty much assume that if you seem taken in by one of my clever disguises, you’re humoring me.”
“Pretty much.”
“Got it. So. What’s the plan?”
Daredevil walked to the edge of the roof. “We go in on the west side of the building; the one facing on the alley. The security will be less tight there.”
“How do you know...?” Batman started to ask.
“Because, no doubt thanks to last night’s snafu, I’m hearing two heartbeats in the office that we were in last night. I’m picking up another dozen spread out on that floor, but more or less in a straight line; they’re ranged along the hallway. And I’m picking up more on the floors above and below, but only on the south side of the building.”
“Nice,” Nightwing said admiringly.
“All right,” Batman said. “Once we take out security, I’ll handle the computer. Daredevil, see what else you can pick up. Nightwing, assist. If anyone comes in before I’ve extracted the data, handle them.” Without another word, the caped vigilante strode briskly to the west side of the roof and stepped off, loosing a grappling line as he did.
“Does he always take command like that?” Daredevil asked with a faint smile.
“You have no idea,” Nightwing replied fervently.
Daredevil shrugged. “If he’s as good as his reputation has it, I haven’t got an issue. Ready?”
“Yep.”
They were halfway to their destination when Daredevil stopped. “What is it?” Nightwing asked.
The crimson-clad crime-fighter pointed to his left. “About forty yards over,” he said, his voice barely louder than a whisper. “Inside.”
Nightwing glanced in that direction. “Shades are drawn,” he said. “I don’t see any light coming through.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Daredevil replied. “Even if I didn’t know the heartbeat, I’d recognize the voice. Kingpin. Now what would he be doing here at this hour of the night?